A higher order ambisonics (HOA) signal (often represented by a plurality of spherical harmonic coefficients (SHC) or other hierarchical elements) is a three-dimensional representation of a sound field. This HOA or SHC representation may represent this sound field in a manner that is independent of the local speaker geometry used to playback a multi-channel audio signal rendered from this SHC signal. This SHC signal may also facilitate backwards compatibility as this SHC signal may be rendered to well-known and highly adopted multi-channel formats, such as a 5.1 audio channel format or a 7.1 audio channel format. The SHC representation therefore enables a better representation of a sound field that also accommodates backward compatibility.